The architecture of the Renaissance is dominated by a group of architects who were engaged as much by theory as by building. The rediscovery of De architectura , the one surviving treatise by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, established a model for understanding principles of architecture in a way that was markedly different from the medieval past. Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Donato Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Andrea Palladio are just a few of the most familiar architects whose buildings changed cityscapes and countryside throughout Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and continued to exert an influence on the architecture of Europe through the twentieth century. Among these names, men who identified themselves as citizens of Florence predominate and so it is in that city that we find the first expression of what has come to be regarded as Renaissance architecture. Brunelleschi's churches of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito remain unchallenged examples of the rigorous intellectual appreciation of measure and design within a framework that embraced the lessons of Classical antiquity. The Pazzi Chapel, built within the complex of the Franciscan church of Santa Croce, was long regarded as one of Brunelleschi's unquestioned masterpieces, a mature work reflecting a lifetime of learning and achievement.

Recently, some modern scholars have attached the name of Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, one of Brunelleschi's talented contemporaries and the architect of the Palazzo Medici, to the Pazzi Chapel. This situation reflects the continuing vibrancy of scholarship in the field of Renaissance architecture. If this new attribution is accepted, it also suggests the powerful position Brunelleschi occupied in the minds of his contemporaries since the Pazzi Chapel is so clearly reflective of his style. Whoever is the actual architect of the Pazzi Chapel, this small but important building of the mid-fifteenth century expresses the lucid visual language of the Florentine Renaissance. In 1520, Michelangelo began the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo as a funerary chapel for members of the ruling Medici family. The Pazzi Chapel, as well as Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy in San Lorenzo, exerted a strong effect on Michelangelo's design both as a model to emulate, to challenge and to surpass.

Renaissance architecture in Northern Europe took a distinctly different form. For example, the Royal Chateau at Chambord betrays Italian ideals in the clear articulation of the original ground plan but the proportions, disposition of windows, architectural details and dramatic roof line call on a blend of Italian and French ideas creating a building markedly French in character. This style of building represents the emergence of French Classicism, which owed much to the Treatise on Architecture written by Sebastiano Serlio. Other examples of French Classicism as it developed in the sixteenth century include parts of the Chateau at Blois and the Square Court of the Louvre begun by Pierre Lescot in 1546.

The architectural models established during the Renaissance provided a lasting legacy for later architects who, at their best, always remain aware of this heritage.